


Easy Target

by Periwinkle39



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Grosse Pointe Blank AU, High School Reunion, Jon and the Starks Are Not Related, Mentions of past abuse, gun violence in final chapter, jon is a hitman, jonsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-10-06 04:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20501276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Periwinkle39/pseuds/Periwinkle39
Summary: Jon left Winterfell right after high school to join the army and hasn't been back or in touch with anyone there since. Ten years later, the fates (and his handler Gilly and his boss Dany) are conspiring to send Jon—now a burned out hitman—back home just in time for his 10-year reunion. What will happen when he reunites with his best friend and the girl he's been dreaming about (literally) since he left home?Basically, a Grosse Pointe Blank AU, a little less dark, a little more emotional.Tags will be updated as I go along.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really don't need multiple WIPs, but I got this idea and it wouldn't leave my head. It's a hot mess, but you know . . . *shrugs*

Jon Snow looked at the invitation in his hand, its cheesy script font practically mocking him.

> _Can you believe it’s been a decade since graduation?  
_ _Join your fellow Winterfell High Wolves for cocktails, dinner and dancing at your 10 year reunion!_
> 
> _Hotel Highgarden   
_ _Grand Ballroom  
_ _6 p.m., 10 September_
> 
> _Please note any dietary restrictions on enclosed RSVP card. See you there!_

Jon looked in the envelope. It was empty.

_Fucking Gilly_, he thought.

He looked over at the monitor in front of him, then at his watch. It was almost time.

First, he had a strongly worded text to send off.

**Jon**: Hey, Gillyweed

**Gilly**: Do you think any other agents who do what you do are such Harry Potter dorks?

**Jon**: Harry Potter is awesome

**Jon**: Shut up

**Gilly**: YOU texted ME, dearest

**Jon**: That nickname is a term of endearment

**Gilly**: Usually deployed when you are annoyed with me, so what is it?

**Jon**: You sent it, didn’t you

**Gilly**: You’re going to have to be more specific.

**Jon**: The reunion

**Jon**: SPE-fucking-CIFICALLY, the RSVP

**Gilly**: lol I forgot about that.

**Gilly**: Of course I sent it.

**Jon**: WHY????

**Gilly**: You need to go home, Jon.

**Jon**: I need to go home like I need a hole in the head

**Gilly**: You’re being ridiculous. I know your therapist, and he agrees.

**Jon**: Sam is not my therapist

**Gilly**: Considering how many times you’ve been at our house to emotionally unload in the last six months, I would say yes he is.

**Jon**: I’m not going.

**Gilly**: Jon, you’re on edge and unhappy, and if you know who (HP reference! See I can do them too!) finds out you were texting me on the job again, we’ll both get fired

**Gilly**: I don’t want to get fired, Jon.

**Gilly**: Go do the thing and we’ll debrief tomorrow

**Gilly**: Also, you’re going

Jon rolled his eyes and shoved his phone back into his bag along with the invitation. He looked at the monitor again. Then his watch. The subject was in position. Jon moved over to the rig. It was a pair of thin cables twined together, hung from a trip pod in the room Jon was sitting in and peeking into the room below from a hole the size of a quarter behind a light fixture. On the end of one of the cables was a tiny camera feeding a picture to a small hand-held monitor. The other tapered into a syringe-like point. Maneuvering the rig around the light, Jon slowly lowered it into place. From his bag, he took the solution, poured it into the rig and waited as it dripped slowly down into the syringe.

Then the subject moved his head. Barely. An inch at most but it was enough. Jon couldn’t pull back now and the first drop of the solution landed on his cheek. Immediately, the subject opened his eyes.

_Fuck!_

Jon was up in an instant. He pulled the rig back up, closed the computer and threw everything into his bag. He ran down the stairs, gun out.

The subject was up and at the door the moment Jon opened it. The subject was in a panic. “Whatever it is I’m doing, I’ll stop doing it,” he pleaded.

Jon raised his weapon and aimed it between the subject’s eyes. “It’s not me.”

Then he shot.

* * *

_She’s running and laughing at the same time. She tries to look back at him but her mane of red hair, pulled this way and that by the wind, obscures her face._

_“Come on, Jon!”_

_He’s trying to catch up, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to. He just wants to keep hearing her laugh._

_“Wake up, Jon!”_

_She finally stops and he’s suddenly standing in front of her. Her hands are on his shoulders._

_Am I dreaming?_

_“Wake up, Jon!”_

“WAKE UP, JON!”

His eyes flew open, and Gilly was standing over him, shaking his shoulders. It took him a minute to get his bearings, but seeing that he was finally awake, she straightened up.

“You were actually sleeping,” she said, knowing it was rare for him these days.

“I was having the dream again,” he replied. He got up and pushed past her, seeing a smirk form on her face.

“Your subconscious is telling you to go home, too? How interesting.”

Jon looked around the mess that was his room. “What’s that smell? You’re not cooking are you?”

Gilly laughed. “Sam is making breakfast. I’ve got an update from Daenerys, who is not happy and waiting for you outside.”

“Shit.”

“Yup, so put on a shirt, go talk to her, and we’ll be here with your egg-whites-only omelette when you’re done.”

“She may kill me. Literally kill me.”

“I doubt it since . . . ” Gilly held up a red folder. Another job.

Jon sighed. “Fine.”

The black town car was only slightly out of place in front of his dingy walk-up. Standing at the top of the outside stairs, Jon looked at it for a long moment, deciding what we wanted to say when he got inside. He waited too long. Her face became visible as the back window slowly lowered, her lips in a thin, grim line.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?”

Jon walked down the rest of the steps and got into the car.

“You fucked up.”

You could count on Daenerys to always be quick and to the point.

“I know,” Jon replied quietly, not looking at her.

She was looking straight ahead too, much too angry for eye contact. “You made it look like a professional hit.”

“It _was_ a professional hit.”

“He was supposed to have a heart attack!”

“I watched him for three months. Everything indicated deep sleep at that hour.”

“Well, we need to fix it.”

“No, Dany, I’m done.”

“You made a mess, Jon. You have to clean it up.”

“I told you this was my last job. I can’t do it anymore.”

She finally turned and looked at him head to toe. He wasn’t wearing shoes. His shoulders were slumped. He looked like he’d been asleep for a day. And there were Gilly’s reports, which all said the same thing. _Burned out, errors likely_. “I know you can’t,” she said with a sigh.

Surprised, he turned to face her completely. “You’re letting me go?”

“You’re not cut out for this, Jon, at least not for the long term. I wanted to make something of you, but you’ve become too much of a risk. So yes, I’m letting you go, but you’re not getting off scot free. You have to clean this up.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Gilly has the dossier.”

He nodded. “Anything else?”

Dany shook her head.

Jon got out of the car without another word. Walking back up the stairs to the door, he heard her voice again.

“Hey, Jon?”

He turned to look at her, surprised to find her smiling ever so slightly. “You’re welcome.”


	2. Chapter 2

Someone in Winterfell was going to die. 

Jon Snow might be that person. 

His assignment, his supposed ticket out of a life that was currently making him crazy and miserable, was safely tucked into the red dossier Gilly had given him, itself safely tucked into the carry-on suitcase she had packed for him. 

_Why had she packed his suitcase for him? Wasn’t he a grown man?_

These had been his questions. 

_I obviously don’t trust you with basic tasks. If you pack, you’ll deliberately not take a suit so as to skip the reunion._

These had been her responses. 

Jon hadn’t bothered to read the dossier yet, so the identity of the person who was supposed to die at Jon’s hands was a mystery. He didn’t care to know at this point because he was still determining whether he, in fact, would be the one to die. Standing in front of the gas station where his old shack of a house used to be, he knew he was being followed. He also knew that merely seeing the last remnants of his sorry childhood might kill him. Needing backup, He pulled out his phone.

“Hello?” Gilly answered. 

“This was a bad idea.”

“You owe me $20!” Jon heard Sam say in the background.

“You what?” Jon asked.

“Hold on I’m putting you on speaker,” Gilly said. “I’m breastfeeding.”

“I don’t need to know that!"

Gilly laughed. “You do what you do for a living, and you’re too squeamish to talk to me by phone while I’m feeding my child? Honestly, Jon, I’m putting this in your file.”

“Joke’s on you because I am done, and you’re going to have to burn your precious little file,” Jon said in a sarcastic huff.

“I’m not adding it for future reference, just to give Dany a laugh. These are the little touches that make me really stand out during my end-of-year review.”

“You make this sound like working for corporate Westeros.”

“We do work for corporate Westeros. Have you seen our client list? And yes, Sam bet me you wouldn’t last six hours before calling. He’s walking around smirking in satisfaction right now.” 

“You took that bet?”

“I’m always rooting for you, Jon. You and Sam need to work on your self esteem next session.”

“I’m not his therapist,” Sam said.

“Yes, you are,” Gilly said. “Anyway, Jon, you _called_?”

Jon took a deep breath. “My house is now a gas station.”

“Considering that it only held the memories of an absent father and a reckless mother, it’s probably for the best, wouldn’t you say?” Sam said.

Gilly smiled, knowingly. “And you say you’re not his therapist.”

“I’m a good mate offering friendly support and advice,” Sam replied.

“There’s something else,” Jon said. “I’ve got a few tails. Two are together, government by the look of their cheap rental car. One is a woman, a tall one with very light blonde hair and the shoulders of an Olympic shot-putter. That’s a compliment by the way. The guy with her looks like an actor. A third one I’ve never seen before, skinny, brown hair and eyes, mustache. And The Mountain is here too. So it’s a lot of heat for Winterfell. Can you check it out?”

“On it,” Gilly said—and when it came to this kind of work, Jon couldn’t count on anyone better than Gilly and Sam. It was the maternal nagging, that annoyed the fuck out of him, which is what came next: “Now, business aside, put on that striped sweater I packed you and the skinny jeans that really accentuate your backside and go see her already!”

“All of his jeans are skinny jeans,” Sam said.

“True, and honestly, he has a great ass and it looks good in just about anything.”

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can this conversation end, please?”

“I mean it about the sweater,” Gilly said. “It looks really good on you and given that it’s been an actual decade, you need to dress to impress here.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Good luck!”

“Thanks, guys,” Jon said sincerely before ending the call, knowing the sincerity with which they were always rooting for him.

With a sigh, Jon walked into the market attached to the gas station. The spook with the mustache was inside, warming something in the microwave. Jon kept his eye on the man’s back as he walked to the refrigerators. He pulled out an orange juice and went to the cashier, a young man of about 20 with only enough fuzz on his face to look 15.

“That’s $2.60, sir.”

Jon pulled a $5 bill out of his wallet and felt the spook push past him on his way out as he was doing so. As the cashier counted, Jon noticed the microwave was still going.

“Fuck!”

He grabbed the young man by the shirt, and pulled him outside. They managed to make it to the street before the explosion, which knocked them both down.

After a moment, Jon stood up and dusted himself off. He held his hand out to the young man. “Are you OK?”

“No!” he said, standing up without Jon’s help. “Now, I gotta get another job!”

Jon sighed. “Yeah, me too.”

* * *

After checking into his hotel and getting himself cleaned up and settled in, Jon was back on the phone with Gilly and Sam. And Dany. Things were getting serious.

“Brienne Tarth and Jaime Lannister, covert government operatives, part of a new campaign to get tough on human trafficking,” Gilly said all business.

“They’re following a lead I’ve been following for a while,” Dany said, “but our intel says there is a leak in the agency, so we can’t be sure who they’re working for.”

“And the ghoul?” Jon asked.

“This guy is a badass!” Gilly said excitedly. “Oberyn Martell. He was an amateur with the Dornish separatists, a few odd jobs in Essos, then went pro with a stunning debut on an elite cruise liner.”

“Why is he trying to kill me?” Jon asked.

“He’s not,” Dany said.

“The rubble that was once the gas station where my house used to be begs to differ.”

“Do you really think a guy at his level is going to use a microwave in a gas station, leaving with more than enough time for you and the only other person inside to get away?” Dany said.

“So he wants to get my attention?”

“He wants to get _my_ attention, you idiot,” Dany said.

“We’ve officially put out the word that Dany is looking for a new dragon,” Sam said. “We think he’s just trying to make some noise.”

“What was the call, first person to maim Jon Snow wins?”

“You can leave as soon as it’s done, so is it done?” Dany asked.

Jon sighed. “No, it’s not done.”

“Well, get to it! Have you even read the dossier?”

Another sigh. “No.”

Before Dany could say more, Gilly jumped in. “Thank you for joining us, Dany. The intel is very helpful. I’ll take it from here and update you tomorrow, OK?”

“Fine,” Dany said. “Snow, if you’re serious about getting out, you need to get serious about finishing this job.”

“Heard loud and clear,” he replied.

Sam verified that Dany was off the conference call with a nod to Gilly. “You, OK?” Gilly asked Jon.

“Yeah. Just send me the intel.”

“Doing it now," Sam said. 

“Do what you need to do, OK?" Gilly said. "I’m not just talking about the job. We’re worried about you.”

“Look, I have to go,” Jon replied.

“We all have to go sometime but we can choose when,” Sam said.

“No one chooses when," Jon said. Then, without giving a chance for his friends to respond, Jon hung up. He looked over to the red folder, still sealed. He picked it up, spun it in his hands, then set it back down. 

It was still only 2 p.m.

He got up from the bed, catching a glance at himself in the bathroom mirror he chuckled. Without thinking, he’d put on the striped sweater.

He lifted up his phone to take a picture of himself and texted it to Gilly. She responded with three heart-eyes emojis.

* * *

Jon wasn’t sure where he would go first. Winterfell wasn’t exactly a big place. He considered merely stepping outside and announcing to anyone in the vicinity that he was back after ten years and odds were that someone who had known him once would hear.But because he was staying at the hotel where the reunion was being held, as a matter of fact, he didn’t even have to go outside to be found.

Boy, was he found. 

As he walked through the lobby, he heard the voice.

“Jon?”

He turned around and the smile was as blinding as ever.

“Holy shit! Jon Snow?!!”

That Robb Stark didn’t tackle his one-time best friend into a hug was owing to shock more than anything.

Jon couldn’t help but smile at the feeling of being 17 again and witnessing his friend’s trademark exuberance. “Hi, Robb,” he said. Quietly. Jon's own trademark.

“Hi, Robb? That’s it! I thought you were dead or in a cult, mate! What the fuck, _Hi, Robb,_ sure, OK.” Then came the bear hug. Robb wrapped his arms around Jon in such a way that pinned Jon’s arms to his side, like he wanted to make sure he didn’t get away. Jon felt Robb take a deep breath, as if composing himself. When he pulled away, Robb left his hands on Jon’s shoulders. His eyes were teary. Or were the tears in Jon’s eyes?

Robb came in for another hug, and Jon was able to hug back this time. It was longer, more real, and to Jon’s great relief, Robb was smiling again when he pulled away this time.

“You look exactly the same. Well, you’ve got proper facial hair now, but it comforts me to know that I can still recognize that mop on your head anywhere. How long has a been? Also, where the hell have you been? What are you doing with your life? I have so many questions, but fuck it, you’re here. You’re coming to my house for dinner.”

“Um, ten years sounds about right, but you look exactly the same too."

“Well, thank you. I have a six month old who has given me about 6 years of gray hair already.”

Jon smiled, sure Robb was a great dad. “Margaery?”

Robb laughed in a way that said not just, “No, not Margaery,” but that there was a story there. “Ugh, we really need to catch you up. Seriously, Jon, where did you go?”

Jon scratched his neck. He hadn’t really prepared an answer to this question. “Um, I joined the Night’s Watch. That was . . . a lot of it. Last couple of years, I’ve been here and there. King’s Landing, right now, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I’m sort of in transition.”

“What were you doing in King’s Landing?”

“Killing people for a living.”

Robb looked at him seriously for half a second then laughed again. “I’ve missed you, Snow.” Robb looked at his watch. "Listen, I gotta get a reservation for tomorrow night. High school reunion is the sorriest excuse for a night out with my wife and no diapers within a mile, but I’ll take it, you know. You’ll love Jeyne. She’ll love you. Come to the house for dinner tonight. Here, walk with me.”

Robb gestured for Jon to follow him back to the hotel reception. As Jon watched him book a suite for the night, he thought about how Robb looked and seemed exactly as Jon would have predicted. Married, happy, unencumbered, the kind of successful that wore casual (but expensive) slacks and a checked button down rolled up to the top of his forearms in the middle of the day. As a surly teenager, Jon had never minded that Robb’s life was privileged and uncomplicated because Robb was generous and offered what was his as an oasis to Jon. Without him, the darkness that sometimes overwhelmed Jon now would have taken over him long before. The happy memories that Robb had given him continued to sustain him even long after Jon had run away from home after high school.

He had needed to come home to renew that well, and fuck if just a few minutes here hadn’t already started to do the trick. Gilly had been right.

_Fucking Gilly,_ he thought with a laugh.

“Everything OK?” Robb asked, now done.

“Yeah, just . . . yeah. So, dinner?”

“Yes! Here’s our address," Robb said, handing him a card. "I’m prepared to make a scene if you don’t give me your number.”

Jon laughed, shaking his head. After exchanging cell phone information, the two walked out of the hotel. Historic Downtown Winterfell was small but quaint. Comforting.

“So when are you going to ask me about Sansa?”

Jon sighed. “I was hoping to wait an appropriate amount of time so it wasn’t incredibly awkward, and having acknowledged that, I have now made it that way.”

Putting his hand on Jon’s shoulder, Robb said, “Death, taxes, Jon Snow being awkward as fuck. Glad I can count on it.”

“So how is she?”

Robb sighed. Clearly a story there too. “Good. Really good. She had it a bit rough for a while. Married an asshole—_huge_ asshole—but that’s over, thank the Gods. She and Margaery are in business together. Their shop is just around the corner actually. You should stop by. They make and sell clothes and have a podcast that they record in the shop.”

“Wow.”

They’d been standing shoulder to shoulder, but angled toward each other on the sidewalk. Jon looked over now, and saw that Robb was looking at him with a more serious expression than he’d seen on him since they’d run into each other.

“She told me what happened between you two.”

Jon looked down, not sure what to say.

_Sorry I slept with then left your sister then skipped town. By the way, I’d been in love with her the whole time I knew both of you and have been dreaming about her regularly for ten years. _

That probably wasn’t it.

“I know I’m supposed to punch you or threaten you or something, but . . .” Robb took a deep breath. “I’m too happy you’re back for all of that. So I won’t if you promise not to disappear again. Believe it or not, I think she’ll be happy to see you too.”

“You could never throw a real punch, anyway,” Jon said, trying for humor, deflecting everything else.

Robb laughed and came in for one last hug. “I have to go get the kid from daycare, but it’s two blocks that way on the left. You can’t miss it.”

“You don’t want to come with me?”

“I think I’ll stay out of the line of fire.”

“You just said she’d be happy to see me.”

“Well, you know Sansa.”

With a wave, Robb was gone and Jon genuinely wondered, _Do I?_

* * *

Just like Robb had said, the shop wasn’t hard to find. The name was “Wolves and Wishes” and it was in an old storefront that Jon remembered as a used book store when he was young. On one side of the doors, there were neatly arranged clothes racks, beyond which, some of the old book shelves that he remembered were still there holding books, as well as pottery and what looked like jewelry displays. On the other side of the door . . .there she was.

Sansa Stark.

_Sansa Stark._

Her hair was in a bun at the top of her head. She was wearing a plain black T-shirt and red lipstick and a headset, and she was talking into a microphone at the end of a long table covered with a mess of papers.

At the other end, facing away from Jon was a head of caramel hair in perfect waves that Jon remembered well, having sat behind it in Robb’s car all the time she’d been Robb’s girlfriend in high school, which had been most of high school—at least most of the years in high school Robb could drive. She and Sansa had been only a year behind Robb and Jon in high school, both beloved by just about everyone the way only beautiful girls could be. Jon was in their orbit because of Robb but that didn’t mean they were friends. At least, Jon would never have assumed they were until . . . well . . . until everything happened. But it was too late for him by then.

Standing in her line of sight on the outside of the display window, Jon couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were obviously having great fun. Sansa laughed, closing her eyes at one point even as she continued talking, and when she opened them, they were looking straight into his.

Caught in each other’s stares, they stayed there for several interminable seconds before she got her bearings and started speaking again. She put her hand on her forehead, as if shielding her eyes. Jon stepped back. He wondered if he should just go and was going to maybe do that when Margaery pummeled him. He didn’t see her coming. Of course, when Sansa had stopped talking mid-sentence, Margaery turned to see what had caught her attention and immediately she was out of her chair, out of the studio and out the door.

“Jon fucking Snow!”

“Hey, Marge.”

“Aaaah!” She screamed, jumping into his arms. “You look . . . I have no words.” She stepped back, smiling. “She’s going to die and possibly so are you.”

Jon glanced in the window again and Sansa was now picking up the papers on the table, headset off, eyes looking everywhere but at him. “How, um, how are you? Robb said you and Sansa own this place. It looks amazing.”

“It’s a living. Kind of. Sansa’s the brains and the braun behind the operation. I just contribute my grandmother, who buys out our inventory every few months because she can.”

Jon nodded, dumbly.

“Go ahead.”

“What?”

“Come inside. Rip that Band-aid.”

Jon laughed uneasily and followed her in. She pointed to the door into the studio, then walked to the boutique side, perching herself atop the stool behind the register. He watched her the whole way and when she saw that he hadn’t moved, she gestured with her hand.

_Go!_

_Right_.

Opening the door Jon only peaked his head in first. Sansa was still facing away from him. Seeing no other recourse, he came all the way in and closed the door gently behind him. He watched the line of her back straighten. Her shoulders rose gently as she took a deep breath. Because he was human, he looked her up and down. She was wearing red floral capri pants that should have looked ridiculous and would have on just about anyone else. He was still looking at her legs—legs _for fucking days_—when she turned around.

Neither one said anything. Her face was a neutral expression only made so because she was too unsure what to feel for any other kind of expression.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

She looked him up and down then stuck out her hand. “Shaking hands, yeah that works,” she said, as if talking to herself, as he stepped forward to do so.

Suddenly they were closer to each other. Too close. In each other’s space pulled in by their nervous energy. She leaned in. So did he, assuming she was going to hug him, but then her lips were on his, his on hers. They were kissing.

_They were kissing_.

It was awkward and bumpy and glorious.

And just as abruptly, they weren’t.

She had stepped back several feet again. “So . . . hi?”

“Hi, Sansa.”

“How long has it been? How long, um—what are you doing here?”

“The reunion, I guess. Other stuff. You . . .you look great.”

“What happened to you? We were supposed to . . . we—I mean, you . . . you left. Without a word. For a decade.” 

“I joined the Night’s Watch, worked for the government for a while, now I’m just figuring things out, I guess.”

“That’s it? That’s ten years?”

“I was always a work in progress.”

Sansa smiled, in spite of herself. He did too because he liked her smiles. “I guess you were,” she said quietly. “Have you seen Robb? I'm sure he'd die to see you.”

“Yeah, just now. He told me where to find you.”

“Nice of him to warn me.”

Jon looked around the room, scratching the back of his neck, a nervous tic she recognized and practically brought tears to her eyes.

“He said you have a podcast,” Jon said after a while. “Can I listen to it? What’s it called?”

“Jon Snow broke my heart and I fell into depression and then into the arms of an abusive megalomaniacal shit and an ill advised marriage to the same but managed to pull myself out of it thanks to the support of my family, Beyonce and Celine Dion, featuring fashion advice for the modern woman.”

Jon felt punched in the gut and it was the least of what he deserved. He looked down, feeling shame and tears coming on. “I’m sorry.”

“Actually, it's just called Wolves and Wishes.”

He looked up again and laughed lightly, confused by her smile and her frankness and lack of bitterness. He was practically drunk just off getting to look at her. “I _am_ sorry, as pathetic and useless a thing to say as that is.”

“In fairness, I’ve had many years to prepare that line. For a long time it was ‘my family, Beyonce and Adele,’ but Celine is really hot again right now.”

Jon laughed again. He was also crying. _Fuck, I do not deserve her_. “I should go,” eager for her not to see what a mess he was.

“Are you staying at the Highgarden?” she asked, ignoring his bid to leave.

“Room 457.” He blinked quickly. “I don’t know why I just said that. I mean, you can pop by, but I didn’t mean . . . um, anything. I really should go.”

He turned to leave but she caught his arm. “You should stop by the house—my parents’ house. Dad would love to see you.”

“You didn’t turn everyone against me?”

Sansa bit her lip. “As if anyone would ever turn against you. Even in absentia. I couldn’t.”

“I would deserve it.”

Sansa shook her head. She leaned in again, but this time only kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m going to have dinner at Robb’s. Do you want to . . .”

“No, but call me after. He has my number.”

"No matter how late?"

"Please, they have a baby, which means they go to bed at, like, 9 p.m."

The side of his mouth perked up into a kind of hopeful smile. “What if he doesn’t want to give me your number?”

She shrugged. “Then, I guess you’re out of luck, Snow.”

“Yeah." He was getting lost in her eyes and in the sea of school boy clichés he remembered well. "I’m going to go back to my room, number 457, and listen to ‘It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.’”

Sansa laughed her closed-eyes belly laugh. _God, did he love that laugh._ “That’s really on the nose,” she said.

“Story of my life.”

“That one’s not Celine, it’s One Direction.”

He smiled so hard it hurt. Opening the door, he said, “I’m leaving now.”

“Please do!”

He walked out of the shop hearing Margaery yell out, “Bye, Snow!”

He was walking on water and drowning at the same time. 

_Jon Snow broke my heart._

Someone in Winterfell was going to die. 

Jon Snow might be that person. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you to everyone who has read and commented on this story. I am nervous about posting this chapter because it's very emotional and a departure from the tone and action of the movie and the first two chapters of this story. I wanted for the time Jon spent with Robb and later with Sansa to be as emotional as I imagine it with these characters, not the ones in the movie. The backstory is also revealed and whether or not Jon's actions are forgivable, I do believe that Sansa is a forgiving person, especially for those she loves. Anyway, the next chapter will return to the action and finally answer the questions who is Jon supposed to kill and why is he being followed. Hope you enjoy!

Dinner with Robb and Jeyne and six-month-old baby Ned was the perfect kind of uneventful. Jon slid right in as if visiting them was routine. It just felt normal, like something he was already used to doing.

Robb and Jon reminisced about their childhood and high school years, with Jeyne getting the benefit of hearing embarrassing stories that only a best friend would know. She shared her own stories, not just about Robb but about all the Starks, made Jon hold the baby, and took dozens of pictures. Like Robb predicted, she and Jon took to each other immediately, each of them understanding why Robb was drawn to the other. When Jeyne showed Jon their wedding photos, he felt a pang at the sight of Theon Greyjoy, his boyhood rival for Robb’s attention, standing as Robb’s best man.

When Jeyne went upstairs to put the baby down for the night, Robb insisted that he was willing to stay up as long as Jon wanted, eager to make up for lost time. But Jon could tell he was tired too, and anyway, the reunion was tomorrow and there would be more time to catch up.

When Robb responded to the sentiment with, “Do you promise?” He practically morphed into the 10-year-old who also asked Jon to promise he wouldn’t tell anyone Robb broke his mother’s favorite vase playing Star Wars. (To this day, Catelyn blamed Rickon’s dog.)

Jon thought about bringing that up just to see if Robb still did the “zoooommmm” lightsaber sound every time someone brought up Star Wars in front of him. If he had done that, though, it would have opened up a whole new set of memories and Jon would have been there all night.

Jon did promise, though. Doing so was self-preservation at this point.

But he couldn’t stay because he was meant to call Sansa.

Sansa had told him to call her after.

_After_ needed to happen. _After_ might be when she would tell him that she was done being gracious and forgiving and _gorgeous_ like she had been earlier and that, in truth, she hated him with the fire of a thousand suns. But she had told him to call her after and, damn it, Jon wasn’t going to let her down after a decade doing just that.

Sansa had told him to call her after.

He sure as fuck was going to call her after.

If Robb was surprised when Jon mentioned this, he didn’t show it. Jon didn’t know what that meant and didn’t want to make things awkward by asking.

Well, _more_ so.

Ever self-aware, Jon knew he had a hard enough time communicating to one person at a time without complicated sibling dynamics entering the picture.

_But could he have her number please?_

Jon didn’t actually _ask_ Robb for Sansa’s number. He only very plainly stated what the situation was: “She didn’t give me her number. Not that I asked for it specifically. She just said you had it and asking why she didn’t just give it to me herself seemed unreasonable after a ten year absence.”

OK, maybe not _very_ plainly.

Robb laughed, as if it was all so predictable.

Jon wondered for a second but only for a second if he should have just cloned or stolen Robb’s phone while he wasn’t looking, but he hated himself for the thought as soon as he had it.

Eventually, Jon would have to answer the question: “Why did you do it for so long?” He would have to explain that his cynicism about humanity and hopelessness about his own life drew him in, and the solitary nature of the work kept him there. But the solitude had become suffocating. If it hadn’t overtaken him completely, that was because of Gilly and Sam. And because of his memories of the Starks. They tethered him to a time of his life he still felt marginally human. He wanted to be that person again and to be that person he had to be honest.

That was going to be painful.

_Fucking_ painful.

The least he could do was not pile on to the list of confessions by stealing his friend’s phone.

(Robb’s password was probably ‘jeyne’ though.)

In the end, Robb asked for Jon’s phone, found one of the pictures that he took of Jon with the baby and texted it to Sansa without caption or context.

Jon put the phone back in his pocket, and as they were walking out, Robb stopped short and said, “I just realized we only talked about me. Fuck!”

“That was intentional,” Jon responded. “You’re the one who has anything worth talking about.”

“I still want to hear about your life.”

Jon chuckled. “Nah. You really don’t.”

Something about those words made Robb frown. He looked at his feet, embarrassed and emotional. “When we were kids, everything was always about me, and a part of me thought that you needed that because hanging out with me was how you got away from the things about your life that were hard. But I shouldn’t have let you let me be the focus all the time.”

“Robb—“

“I don’t know why you left, but I was mad at you for years.”

“That’s all on me Robb, not you. Please don’t feel guilty about being angry. I gave you reason to be.”

Robb shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you want to know how I knew I wanted to marry Jeyne?”

“How?”

“The first time I brought her to Winterfell, she saw a picture of you. I told her you were my best friend and you left, and I had no idea why.” Robb took a deep breath before continuing. “She said that if I had been _your_ best friend I would have known why you left and helped you pack.”

Jon didn’t know what to say.

“It was fucking gut punch. Nobody had ever just cut through my bullshit like that before.”

Jon smiled. “She’s a keeper, for sure. And in your defense, our friendship wasn’t that one-sided. Avoidance is just something I’m good at.”

“You don’t say.”

Jon smiled.

“My point is that I want to know your life,” Robb said. “If you have to leave again, I want to know why.”

The two stepped forward into a long hug interrupted by the quiet buzz of Jon’s phone. It was a text from Sansa.

She had sent the picture back but now there were red devil horns on Jon’s head and a white halo on baby Ned’s.

Then she sent another picture. The same picture actually, but this time it was a screenshot showing she had made it her lock screen.

* * *

When he got back to the Highgarden, Sansa was already there, nursing a glass of wine at the hotel bar.

The government spooks were there too, _the fuckers_, tucked into a corner booth as if they were not being obvious. They were trying to make it look like they were on a date. Maybe they were, but it was clear they were also on the job, which made Jon think they couldn’t possibly be double agents, as Dany suspected.

Double agents would be better at this.

But then Sansa stood up from the stool she’d been sitting on and Jon forgot about the spooks and also possibly his own name.

Her hair was still in a top knot and her lips were still red as sin. But she had changed into a simple black cotton tank dress. It had a high neck and flared out slightly from the waist, down to just below her knees, and was also possibly the sexiest thing Jon had ever seen. Confident and effortless. Signature Sansa Stark.

“Are you going to sit down?” she asked as he stood there not knowing which way was up.

_Get a fucking grip_, he thought to himself.

He walked up to her, and not knowing what else to do, he stuck his hand out. Sansa took it but leaned back, saying, “Not getting caught in that trap again.”

Jon laughed. He sat down in the chair next to hers and ordered a beer.

“So how did you find Robb?” she asked.

The bartender set the bottle in front of Jon and he took a long pull. “I found him a lucky son of a bitch who has everything and deserves it. So, you know, the unicorn he always was.”

Sansa sighed. “I know.”

“And he somehow managed to marry _up_. Like, what the fuck?”

“Yeah, she’s amazing.”

“Is it weird with Margaery?”

Sansa laughed. “Marge came out of the closet in college.”

“She’s gay?”

“Bi. Or pansexual. Her preferred terminology has evolved. Point is she’s happy in a long-term relationship with a woman.”

“How did Robb react?”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “Really supportively, or course. Mr. Perfect.”

Jon smiled and shook his head. “A unicorn. I guess that’s not surprising . . . Wow.”

“Well, you miss a lot when you drop off the face of the earth.”

Jon bit his lip. “I’m really sorry, Sansa.”

“I don’t want you to keep saying that.”

“It’s mostly a function of not knowing what else to say, which I guess is a lifelong curse.”

Sansa stared at her wine glass. “How much did Robb tell you?”

“About you? Nothing really, other than to say that you’re happy and went through a lot. He said it was your life to talk about, which you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Sansa turned to look at him again. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes and no.”

“Why no?”

Jon swirled what was left of his beer at the bottom of the bottle. “Because it was my fault,” he said quietly.

Sansa reached over to still his hands. “Not all of it was. Honestly. You were a factor, but I’m not prepared to hand over all the credit.”

Jon looked at their hands. “I guess I want to know as much as you want to tell me.”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Jon hesitated. “How much do _you_ want to know?”

Sansa didn’t hesitate “Everything.”

“You might hate me.”

“You’re the son of a bitch who took my virginity and then left. I hate you already.” She said it, but she was smiling.

_Fuck, why did she have to be so fun. _“Fair point, though it’s also fair to point out that you took _my_ virginity.”

“Oh, I remember.” Sansa drank what was left in her wine glass in one go, then stood up. “Come on, let’s go to your room.”

“What?”

“Just to talk, Jon. This isn’t a conversation for a public space.”

* * *

Waiting for the elevator, Jon felt his phone buzz.

**Gilly**: Are you alive?

**Jon**: Barely

**Gilly**: Do you need rescuing?

**Jon**: Yes

**Jon**: Mostly just from myself

**Gilly**: Stop being emo/introspective

**Jon**: That’s my only setting

**Gilly**: jfc

“Who are you texting?”

Jon looked over at Sansa. There was nothing in her expression suggesting she was asking more than a simple question and he found himself disappointed in that. Shaking his head, he said, “My emotional support coworker.”

Sansa cleared her throat. “Is that a fancy term for girlfriend?”

Man, did he want to kiss her. “No. It’s complicated, but not like that. I don’t have a girlfriend. She knows me better than most and . . . um, she was the one who wanted me to come back here. Come back to you.”

“To me?”

Jon nodded.

“You’ve talked to people in your life about me?”

The elevator dinged and opened, saving Jon for the moment. Sansa stepped into it and looked at him expectantly. Jon smiled and lifted up his phone to take a picture of her, and realizing this she lifted up her hand to give him the finger. Jon laughed looking at the picture, then slipped into the elevator when the doors began to close.

He pressed the right button, feeling Sansa’s eyes on him.

“Well?”

He looked at her from the side of his eyes. “Give me a second,” he said, texting the picture to Gilly.

**Gilly**:omg!!!!

**Gilly**: she’s GORGEOUS. I’m in so love already

**Gilly**: so is Sam

**Jon**: get in fucking line

**Gilly**: I’m framing this picture.

**Gilly**: seriously this explains so much

**Jon**: muting you now

The elevator doors opened as Jon put his phone in his pocket. He gestured to Sansa to go ahead. She did with a smirk. “I haven’t forgotten my question.”

Jon smiled, feeling heat come into his cheeks, which made her smile. “Gilly—who I was just texting—and her husband, Sam. They know about you. They and a long series of therapists.”

“Mine is single. You think she’d like any of yours? Maybe they can exchange notes.”

Jon stopped at his door and opened it for her. She walked all the way into the room and then turned to look back at Jon, who had stopped just inside the door.

She looked like she wanted to say something else and looked directly at him like she was just about to for a long minute before letting her eyes wander around the room. Jon’s things were neatly piled up in his bag, sitting on a suitcase rack in the corner.

“Would you believe the last time I was in one of these rooms was with you?”

_Shit_. “No I wouldn’t, actually.”

Sansa nodded. “It’s true.”

“What about _your _senior prom?”

“I didn’t go.”

Jon knotted his brow, concerned and curious.

“Grandfather Holster died that week. Mom tried to insist that I go but I was just going with friends and I didn’t care than much.”

“You cared a lot the year before.”

“That was a stupid girl with stupid dreams.”

“No, she wasn’t.”

Sansa smiled, biting her lip. She looked down at the small refrigerator near where he was standing. “If we’re doing this, I’m going to need to bust into that minibar.”

* * *

It was a standard room, with two double beds so they each sat on a bed, legs crossed, facing each other. A row of mini bottles lines up on the edge of the nightstand between them.

It was a familiar set up.

“What do you remember about that weekend?” Sansa asked, pouring one of the tiny vodka bottles into a glass half-full of ice and club soda.

“Fucking everything,” he said, drinking straight out of the mini Jack Daniels bottle.

Jon hadn’t planned on going to his senior prom. He hadn’t wanted to ask anyone and, more to the point, he hadn’t wanted to pay for the $80 ticket.

The night of, about 9 o’clock, he headed over to Robb’s house, which he knew would be empty. Robb and Sansa long gone with their respective dates. Their parents and younger siblings, having seen them off, and taken many, many pictures, were gone themselves to Catelyn’s parents’ house in Riverrun for the weekend. Jon had gotten an earful from Arya about how unfair it was that she had to go when Robb and Sansa got to party unsupervised for two days.

It _was_ unfair. But selfishly for Jon it meant he could be alone in peace and quiet for the night. He and his mom had fought again. She was heading to White Harbor with the flavor of the month and Jon didn’t trust that she’d be back for graduation the following weekend.

Except Sansa came home early after a fight with Harry, her dickhead boyfriend. They never even made it to the prom and back then Sansa _did_ care a lot. So did Jon. About Sansa. She didn’t know it, at least not until he stole a suit from Robb’s closet and said he’d go with her instead. Except, when they got to the Highgarden, where the Winterfell High prom was always held, instead of going into the ballroom, they got a room, stayed up talking until about 6 a.m., when they fell asleep in each other’s arms. They woke up a few hours later, in love, made love and spent the day together, as sure of their feelings for each other as teenagers can feel about anything.

And then Jon went home and listened to his messages for the first time all weekend. His mother had overdosed in her motel in White Harbor.

He went there alone to pick up her personal effects and never came home.

Not until now.

“What do _you_ remember?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Sansa said with a sigh. She took a long pull of her drink. “After a while I wondered if any of it really happened. If I just went home after fighting with Harry, fell asleep and dreamed it all.” She laughed at herself for a second, then added, “I do remember how much I loved that dress.”

“I remember how much _I_ loved that dress.”

She smiled. “I remember how much you loved that dress too.”

Jon smiled back, looking at her in the eyes, soft eyes that didn’t want to stop looking at her, looking at her like he used to look at her back then, before she knew he was looking at her that way. “That was the best weekend of my life.”

“Two years went by before told anyone about it,” Sansa replied, “which meant I couldn’t really mourn your absence, not the way Robb did. Doing so would have meant I had to explain myself, so I spent months crying into my pillow instead.”

“I don’t suppose it’ll make you feel better to know I basically did the same thing.”

Sansa furrowed her brow. “Why?”

“Why did I cry for months? Because I was in love with you.”

“No, you ass, why did you leave?”

“You heard about my mom, I assume.”

“Eventually. You know we would have helped you.”

Jon shrugged, and took another mini bottle off the night stand. “I was seventeen, directionless and stupid. You were perfect. Your family was perfect. I didn’t really fit into the picture.” Jon opened the bottle and drank it one go. “I didn’t want to go back, explain what happened and see regret in your eyes.”

Sansa finished her own drink, stood up and sat down next to Jon, taking his hand. “So where did you go?”

“I had to go to a police station to pick up all her stuff. There was a poster there about enlisting in the Night’s Watch. Seemed as good an option as any. Food and shelter. All I had to do was learn how to kill people, which given my anger at the time, seemed like a productive way to channel that energy.”

“Can you kill my ex-husband?”

“If the price is right.”

“I think I have a few pennies in my wallet.”

“Done.”

They both burst out laughing and did for several minutes. Jon was making Sansa another drink when she said, quietly, “He hit me.”

Jon froze. “What?”

“I married him to get away, and I ended up in hell, except I couldn’t extract myself. Every time it happened I was so . . . shocked, I guess, that it was happening to me that I almost convinced myself it didn’t until it happened again.”

“Gods, Sansa, I . . . I’m so sorry.”

She smirked. “I told you to stop saying that.”

“I will kill him if you want me to—I’m not even joking. Actually, I’m not even asking your permission. Just assume it’s going to happen someday.”

“That’s sweet,” she said with a laugh. “But he’s not worth your time.”

Jon looked down, handing her the drink.

“So . . . killing people. Does that come with dental insurance?”

Jon laughed. _She doesn't believe me_. “No.”

As Sansa took a drink, Jon sat down next to her again. She probably didn't even think him capable of doing what he did, and he kind of loved her for that. “I think you should go to the reunion with me tomorrow.”

“What? No! I mean, I was going to make fun of them on my podcast, but—“

“All the more reason. Besides, there’s going to be dancing. We obviously have to make up for never going to prom in high school.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, holding out the drink. “Here. Finish this. I think we’ve done enough sharing for one night.”

Sansa stood up and so did Jon. He followed her to the door. There, before she opened, it, Sansa turned to face Jon and enveloped him in a hug. Feeling her tuck her face into his neck, Jon thought there might literally be no better feeling in the world.

“I think you left because you thought you needed to protect me from you,” she whispered. “Don’t think that.”

And then she was gone.

Jon went back over to the bed they’d been sitting on fell on it with a sigh. Somewhere in that room was a red folder he was supposed to read. But fuck if he could think about anything else but Sansa Stark.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I plotted out the conclusion of this story, I decided to break up the last chapter into this extension of the emotional exploration of Jon's return and his reunion with Sansa and the action/resolution of Jon's hit. So I hope you enjoy more Jon Snow being in his feelings before shit hits the fan. Let me know what you think!

It was past 10 a.m. when Jon woke up the next day. He hadn’t slept this long, this—_dare he say it?_—peacefully, in years. He felt rested and unburdened, a weird feeling, to say the least, for a person who had felt personally attacked by the world basically since birth.

Then he remembered the red folder.

He remembered he still has someone to kill.

He looked forward to the time when that wouldn’t have to be a thing he thought about.

He should have at least opened and read the dossier by now, but doing so would be admitting, here in his hometown, what he had become. 

If he really meant to avoid it, at least for another day, that would mean leaving the room, so with nothing else to do, Jon changed into athletic clothes and decided to go for a long run. When he stepped out of the hotel he considered briefly going by Sansa’s shop, but decided to let his invitation to tonight’s reunion sit another few hours and at least try not to seem like the loser desperate for her forgiveness and time he clearly was.

He did put on a playlist of her podcasts, though, and could have run to King’s Landing and back just powered by the sound of her voice.

Jon could only assume that Gilly would have suggested that he not only run by the shop, but that he also stop and do push ups in Sansa’s line of sight, preferably while shirtless, which meant that the best idea was probably for Jon to stay away.

He decided to head toward the high school, instead. It was the ostensible reason why he was in town, in any case. On his way, he ran by a few of his and his friends’ old haunts, and memories he had thought were gone from his mind began to stir.

Weekend mornings he, Robb and the rest of the Stark kids crammed themselves into a booth at Hot Pie’s while Ned and Catelyn sat at the counter and shared the newspaper over pancakes.

The rare evening his mom wasn’t working, out with her friends or passed out on the couch, when she would take him to the cinema and let him splurge on a big tub of popcorn.

Or the evenings when she was and rather than impose on the Starks yet again he would hide out at the local library, where Mr. Lewin, the head librarian would let him stay after hours, share his dinner and then walk him home.

Winterfell memories were not all good, but revisiting them now Jon realized they weren’t all bad either. He had spent so long convincing himself that leaving had been his only choice, his only possible method of survival, that he had forgotten that Winterfell had saved him in many other ways long before he’d reached that breaking point. He was happy to acknowledge as much now and, if nothing else, grateful that the bitterness he had felt upon leaving was gone now and that he had not taken it out on a place and people that—wouldn’t you fucking know—really did mean a lot to him after all.

When Jon finally got to the Winterfell High campus, it too looked much the same. Smaller maybe.

He grinned when, running by the athletic field, he saw the small set of bleachers where he used to sit while waiting for Robb to finish football practice. Their senior year, from that same spot, he could also see the cheerleaders practice too—Sansa among them—somehow managing never to be caught staring at her. At least not by Sansa. Margaery had done several times, and thinking of it now, Jon felt silly having spent so much time not thinking of her as his friend, for who but the best of them would not reveal to the object of your very obvious affection what she could see so clearly written all over your face.

After doing a lap all the way around the campus, Jon came back to the bleachers and sat down. After catching his breath, he took out his phone.

It took four rings for Gilly to answer, and her voice when she said hello seemed to have a nervous edge to it that felt unfamiliar to Jon. Usually, she noticed that he was calling and answered with a quick quip rather than a formal greeting.

“I was expecting you to answer with a question about what happened last night,” he said.

He heard a long sigh. “Is everything OK?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s just . . . things are happening.”

“Anything I need to know about?”

“No, not yet. But, um, keep your phone close, OK?”

She was worried, which worried Jon. “OK . . . do _you_ need rescuing?”

This seemed to get her out of whatever it was and made her chuckle, remembering their text conversation the night before. “Only from Sam’s Lord of the Rings obsession.”

Jon heard Sam yell out, “It’s only the greatest work of literature _and_ cinema!”

He and Gilly both laughed.

“So are you post-coital?” She asked pointedly. “I realized after we texted that you took Sansa’s picture in an elevator so don’t even try to deny that she was in your room.”

“We just talked,” he said with a chuckle.

“Was it a good talk? Is she who you remember?”

Jon sighed. “Yes and, fuck yes. Better.”

“So what’s next?”

“I’m not sure. She has a podcast called Wolves and Wishes. You should look for it. I think you’d like it.”

“Ooh! I will.”

“Thank you.”

“For what? Agreeing to listen to the long lost love of your life’s podcast?”

Jon laughed. “For making me come home.”

Gilly sighed, the nerves or whatever suddenly back. “You’re welcome.”

After a beat, she asked, “Guessing you haven’t done it yet?”

Jon rubbed his face with his free hand. “No. Tomorrow. Tonight’s the reunion. Is it urgent?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Missandei was the one who put this one together.”

“It wasn’t you and Sam?”

“No. It’s from when the baby was born. Dany had been sitting on it for a while, apparently.”

“So you don’t know who it is?”

“Dany didn’t tell me who it was, only that it became a priority after—“

“After the one that was supposed to be a heart attack,” Jon said with a sigh.

“Yup.”

“Fuck.” A thought came to Jon’s mind and he wondered suddenly if this was what felt off. “What’s going to happen after? Is this it?”

He heard her sniffle. Yes, this was it. _Fuck_.

“No . . . I don’t know,” Gilly said. “We haven’t talked about the exit strategy.”

“She’s going to insist you cut me off."

“Sam and I will figure something out.”

“OK.”

“OK,” Gilly said quietly.

“Any word on a replacement?”

“I don’t think she wants to talk to me about it, and honestly, I don’t want to talk about it either. I mean, the next guy could be a real loner, not just a wanna be one like you. What would Sam and I do with all the extra time?”

Jon chuckled, in spite of himself. “We need to figure something out.”

“We will. Now go have fun.”

* * *

Jon didn’t have too long to think about his conversation with Gilly before his phone buzzed again, and he smiled seeing that it was Robb.

“Hello?”

“You haven’t skipped town again, have you?”

“No, I’m still here,” Jon said, smiling. “I’m actually sitting on the bleachers at school.”

“Ha! Well, maybe you should go back to the hotel so the flashbacks don’t drive you away again.”

“Actually, believe it or not, I’m recalling mostly just the good memories—or rather, remembering the fact that we were idiot teenagers with surprising fondness.”

“We were, indeed, lovable idiots. Anyway, I’m calling to let you know Jeyne and I are going to come pick you up for a pre-reunion drink.”

“That sound great,” Jon said, hoping his quiet voice didn’t give away the fact the gesture was basically making him cry.

God, he was an emotional bastard, but like _happy_ emotional for once.

“Don’t get too excited,” Robb said. “We’re going to my parents’ house and if you were scared of Lady Catelyn’s wrath before, consider that Sansa’s the kind of daughter who tells her mother everything.”

“She never really liked me so I suppose now she has a reason, and a legit one at that so I probably shouldn’t complain.”

“I don’t know, man. You’ve never seen her really, _really_ pissed.”

“You _are_ trying to convince me to come with you, right?”

Robb laughed. “Just making sure you’re ready.”

“I’ll bring my flack jacket.”

Robb laughed again, and then, after a bit of silence he said, “Speaking of Sansa, how did it go last night?”

“I’ll send you the picture I took of her giving me the finger.”

Robb laughed, but Jon could tell it was a bit hollow.

“She’s a lot tougher than she used to be,” Robb said, “but also not as tough as she tries to project. I mean she may not seem as much of a romantic as she was when we were kids, but . . .”

“But what, Robb?”

“I don’t think she ever stopped wishing you’d come back.”

Jon was not sure what to do with the information, not quite ready to let himself believe she’d so much as thought of him once in all this time.

“Now that you’re here,” Robb continued, “Well . . . just . . . Look, I don’t need to know where things stand between you two, but _she_ needs to know. She deserves that much.”

“If you’re trying to politely say she deserves better than me, you won’t get an argument.”

“I’m trying to say that _she_ gets to determine what she deserves. You took that decision out of her hands once. Don’t do it again.”

Jon let out a long sigh. “I won’t.” Jon chuckled and added. “Did they teach therapy classes in architecture school?”

“Nah. It’s the fact that the only women I’ve loved are a lesbian and a kindergarten teacher. It does wonders for the emotional IQ. Oh, wait—I should probably explain that.”

Jon laughed. “Sansa told me about Margaery.”

“Let’s hold on any more emotional sharing until we’ve both had some booze. We’ll pick you up at 4.”

“See you then.”

* * *

The drive to the Starks home was a quiet 20 minutes during which Jon mostly just watched a sleeping baby Ned, who was in his backward-facing seat next to Jon in the back of the car. Ned had Robb’s big expressive eyes but otherwise seemed to favor his mother, which Robb said was as it should be. He was awake when Jon climbed in and excited about having someone to look at in the car for once. Jon bopped his nose with his index finger in greeting, and Ned grabbed it immediately with surprising firmness. The car ride, of course, put him to sleep but he never let go of Jon’s finger, and despite the fact that this was a six-month-old baby with likely very little object permanence, Jon went ahead and assumed this meant Ned loved him or at least definitely liked him more than Theon.

When they pulled into the long driveway, the crush of gravel beneath the tires tugged on something in Jon such that Jeyne asked him if he was all right when she happened to look back to check if the baby was still asleep.

“Yep,” Jon managed to squeak out and she smiled, fondly as if she knew what this meant to Jon, even if she didn’t know him all that well.

_Yet_, Jon thought. _Doesn’t know me well _yet_._

“I’ll head Cat off with the baby,” she said. “Nothing distracts like the first grandchild.”

“You call her _Cat_,” Jon said in disbelief.

“My wife is magical, Snow. If we ever divorce, Gods forbid it, my parents would ask to keep her instead of me.”

“Clearly.”

Jeyne laughed. “It’s not me. It’s just the fact that I was the first significant other brought home with no emotional baggage or social issues.”

Robb added, “Present company included.”

The three of them laughed as Robb shut off the engine. And sure enough, as if to prove Jeyne’s point, Jon practically tripped over his own feet getting out of the car when he realized Sansa was standing outside waiting for them.

“How is my darling boy,” she said brightly approaching them.

“Jon’s looking good—oh, you actually mean your nephew!” Robb said, laughing at his own joke.

Sansa rolled her eyes and huffed as Robb put his arm around her neck roughly and whispered (loud enough for Jon to hear), “Go easy on him.”

Jeyne, with the pursed lips of a woman used to her husband’s antics, grabbed Robb and pulled him along, while holding the baby in his carrier with her other arm.

Jon moved to follow them but felt Sansa’s fingers on his arm. “Actually, I did want to talk to you,” she said. “At least, before mom maims you.” Looking down embarrassed, she added, “She was on the receiving end of most of the tears, so . . .”

Jon felt a lump in his throat. It was one thing for Robb to tease him about Catelyn, but another for Sansa to admit that she cried on her mother’s shoulder about him. “You said, uh, you said you didn’t tell anyone for two years.”

Sansa offered a half-hearted shrug. “So she knows that it hurt for a long time, and it’s hard not to be self indulgent with your mother.”

Jon nodded, looking down. “I would hate me too.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head with an uneasy laugh, “that’s not what this was supposed to be about. I was just trying to make a joke.”

Jon let out a long breath. He wanted to push past it too, to make light of things, but her feelings were not something he would ever take lightly. Still, he was buoyed by the lightness in her eyes. “In that case, I think I’m safe. Little Ned said he would cover for me.”

Sansa’s smile grew.

(Gods, he was fucked.)

“Well, I value my nephew’s opinion over everyone else’s, so I guess if he approves of you that means I _have_ to go to the reunion with you.”

Jon bit his lip, hoping it would keep him from grinning like an idiot.

“OK.”

“On two conditions.”

“Name them.”

“I can leave unannounced at any point in the evening.”

“That seems fair. And the second?”

“I can wear high heels.”

Jon realized at her words that he hadn’t really taken in her appearance yet. She was wearing a ratty black T-shirt and short overalls. Her hair was down. This was the first time he’d seen it like this and so it was the first time he could see its length, a few inches past her shoulders, not as long as it was in high school when it went gorgeously—_endlessly_—all the way down her back. It was long enough to feel long, but with the polish of a grown and busy woman who needed a style that was a bit more manageable.

She was so incredibly beautiful. Jon took a mental picture that—seven fucking save him—he knew would come to mind next time he was alone in the shower.

Feeling his eyes on her, she looked down, but the blush in her cheeks seemed pleased by the scrutiny.

“I’m not ready yet, obviously.”

“Honestly, you could wear this, and I’d still consider you the best dressed person there. And the loveliest.”

She rolled her eyes with a smirk. “So do we have a deal?”

“Sure, but why are you asking me about heels? Is there some sort of fashion rule I’m unaware of.”

Sansa stepped forward into his space. His eyes widened in anticipation and, fuck it, delight.

He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “What?”

Her eyes practically drilling into his, she said, “We’re the same height.”

“So?”

“So heels would make me taller than you.”

Jon might have licked his lips. He was practically on the verge of blacking out. “I _loved_ your legs,” he said, with a sincerity that Sansa found endearing.

Grinning, she replied, “I remember.”

“You’re saying there is more of them now?”

“An inch or two.”

“And heels would make them look even longer, right?”

“That’s the idea.”

“And you think I would have a problem with this?”

Sansa laughed again. He could almost feel it against his face. With sincerest apologies to her mother, Jon might have to take a minute before going inside with all this proximity and talk of her fantastic legs.

“So is that a yes?”

“An enthusiastic one,” Jon said. “Should we shake on it?”

She laughed, stepping back to offer her hand, which he shook quickly and let go.

“This feels like that scene in whatever Harry Potter movie it was where Hermione shakes Ron’s hand instead of hugging him like she hugged Harry,” Sansa said.

“Chamber of Secrets, although I always thought of us like more of a Harry-Ginny type couple.”

“You’ve thought of us in a Harry Potter context?”

He scratched the back of his neck, nerves starting to get the best of him again. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about you over the years.”

Looking into her eyes again, Sansa looked nervous too, but maybe in a good way.

She stayed quiet, though, so he spoke up again. “Boy with troubled family and dark, untamable hair escapes to his best friend’s house, falls for his beautiful, kind, sporty, red-haired younger sister.”

“And he leaves her behind to protect her?”

“Something like that.”

There was a charge in the air between them. Jon almost didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility now that it felt real and there for them to take. But before anything else could happen, a firm voice called to them from the door.

“You _are_ allowed to come inside.”

They turned to see Catelyn at the front door, arms crossed knowingly.

“How long do you suppose she’s been watching?” Jon asked.

“She’s always watching,” Sansa said with smile. “Anyway, I should go get ready.”

She tugged on his arm, but before moving he said, “There’s still a lot of stuff I have to tell you.” His voice was serious. “Stuff I need you to know before we, um—stuff you need to know.”

“OK. We’ll talk. Right now, though, I gotta go pick a good legs outfit.”

Jon sighed, falling into step with her toward the door. Toward doom and bliss all at once. “Yes, you do.”

Sansa walked ahead of Jon, past her mother into the house. Jon stopped to address her, trying not to seem like the kid who always found her a little scary.

“Hello, Mrs. Stark.”

“Hello, Jon Snow,” she said, her voice even as it always way. “My husband is opening a very special bottle inside, in honor of you.”

This did not sound like an invitation, but her lips perked up into a half a smile.

“He is?”

“Whiskey that costs $500 per bottle, as a matter of fact—the terms he set when I bet him you’d never come back.”

“Would you like me to reimburse you?” he asked, feeling genuinely out of his depth. What was a professional killer in the face of a well-bred, no nonsense mother so proper and polished, she’d been given the nickname _Lady Catelyn_ by her son’s childhood friends.

“No, but if you accidentally spill it all over the floor before he has a taste of it I wouldn’t mind.”

Jon laughed for a second, but then stopped, unsure that she wanted him to laugh. Her expression, still firm, had softened somewhat. She gestured for him to go inside then clipped him in the ear as he walked by.

“Welcome home, kid.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Finally! The conclusion to this story (specifically the last third of this chapter) took a lot longer to write than I was anticipating mostly because I completely suck at writing action and plot—even when I'm stealing the plot from a movie. I can't decide if I'm being overly self-critical or if this genuinely sucks, but in any case, I hope you don't hate it.
> 
> As with previous chapters, this is a more emotional, more detailed departure from the movie this fic is based on, Grosse Pointe Blank. Mostly, I wanted to give detail to Jon's work because even though the character is just a contract killer in the movie, the Jon Snow I love has to have a measure of justification for what he does.

Jon didn’t spill the whiskey.

It’s not like Ned Stark—the grown one, not the baby—wasn’t scary in his own right. Jon assumed that in a fight between the two, Catelyn would win on her wits and death glare, but Ned could also intimidate with the best of them.

And also, Ned had bet that Jon would return, and fuck if that didn’t make Jon want to please the hell out of the man. 

And also, he might want to marry Sansa someday and maybe staying on his future father-in-law’s good side was a good idea considering all the other strikes Jon was bound to have against him once everything was out in the open. 

So they drank the whiskey, which was also a good thing because when Sansa joined them the slight buzz was such that Jon’s senses were slightly dulled, keeping him from having to excuse himself yet again because was it even legal for anyone to look like this?

It was a strapless deep emerald green formal romper with a sweetheart neckline.

(Jon knew what a sweetheart neckline was only because Gilly had made him go with her to try on wedding dresses and provide a Sam-adjacent male perspective.)

It would still be a few hours yet before Jon would figure out that Sansa was strapless under the black fitted suit jacket that she was wearing, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, over the romper. Sansa bought the outfit on a whim, she’d said, for a theme party Margaery threw in college once, and never wore it again. She held on to it because it looked great on her but an occasion to wear it that made her feel as good as she felt wearing it never materialized again. Her black heels gave her three inches on him—_at least_—and Jon was grateful for every single one. Her hair was down but for a bobby pin with a small dragonfly at the end of it, holding some of it back on the left side.

She was a fucking vision.

In so far as she had suggested that she was dressing for him, Jon felt 100% unworthy but also wasn’t going to register a single complaint.

He might have just sat there staring at her dumbly the entire night had Ned not asked to speak with him privately, after she’d come down, which sparked his nerves but for different reasons.

Although never expressly unkind, Catelyn had always been a bit wary with Jon. As emotionally illiterate as anyone would expect a boy from an unsteady home to be, Jon had misinterpreted as dislike what was merely overprotectiveness over her own children. But Ned could not be misinterpreted. He treated Jon with the obvious care of a man who can recognize the need for a father in a young boy who did not have one. Jon idolized him when he was young and was likewise somewhat haunted by the potential to overcome his circumstances that Ned always insisted Jon had. Inside the man’s study, so many years later, Jon felt 10 years old again.

“How does it feel to be back here after all this time?” Ned asked.

“Overwhelming, if I’m honest, but it’s nice to be home—not that I mean that your house is my home, I—“

“I always hoped that was how you felt about it so it’s OK, if you do.”

Jon smiled, or he tried. It might have looked like a grimace to Ned, but only because it expressed Jon’s many feelings all at once.

“I don’t know if you know this, but my brother Benjen was also in the Night’s Watch.”

Jon swallowed thickly. “No, I didn’t.”

“He told me you joined.”

“You knew where I was?” _What else did he know?_

“Not exactly, and not right away. Benjen was always on long term missions and didn’t pop up all that often, but a few years after you had left, he said he had seen your name on a list of recruits who made it through the academy with distinction—the ones tagged as likely career Watchmen like him. Jon Snow isn’t an uncommon name, but there was only one from Winterfell. . . . It was nice to hear how well you had done.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Because _you_ didn’t.”

Jon let that sink in. Ned Stark had trusted Jon to make sense of his own life. Not that it made any sense now, but still, it was his life to explain—for good or ill.

Ned continued, “It was hard to see Robb and Sansa continue to wonder why you had just disappeared and not give them some reassurance, at least, that you were OK. But their lives were simpler than yours in ways they didn’t quite see yet when you were all kids. I did not want them to resent you for not believing, like they would have, that your problems were easily fixable.”

“I should have believed it, though.”

“We all need to make our own way in the world. You thought you had to do so alone. I can understand that. Anyway, I thought the only way you would come back to stay is if you came back on your own. And I hope you do . . . stay, that is.”

“I hope I can,” Jon said.

Ned’s brow crinkled slightly as if wondering what exactly that reply meant, but he did not press the point.

“Thank you for betting on me,” Jon said.

Ned smiled, moving toward the door again to rejoin the family. Before he opened it, Ned put his hand on Jon’s shoulder.

“Starks are loyal, and you’re one of us, which means you are too.”

* * *

Robb, Jeyne, Sansa and Jon stood shoulder to shoulder just inside the main doors into the grand ballroom at the Hotel Highgarden, and although the hotel was considered high end, there was something decidedly cheesy, decidedly _high school_ about the current ambiance, never mind that the event was for adults ten years removed from the awkwardness that is supposed to end at adolescence.

Maybe it was the crepe paper decorations or the limp, plastic flower center pieces or the throwback music. Maybe it was just the feeling of being among people who saw you at your pimpliest, most emotionally confused, least confident self.

Either way, it was impossible to go in and not immediately wonder if turning right around and doing something else, anything else, wasn’t the better option.

To that point, Jeyne was the first to speak. “If this was what your prom was like,” she said, “I can totally understand why you two decided to call it a night and get a room before it even started.”

“I think in their case, getting a room really was just about _getting a room_ if you know what I mean,” Robb said with a laugh.

Jon leaned forward to respond to Robb, “For your information, we—“

But of course, Sansa cut him off with, “The last thing Robb needs about prom night is _information_.”

With a good natured eye roll, Jon said, “OK, but leaving _is_ an option.”

“We know your position on that, thanks,” Sansa said with a smirk. “Why don’t we just go to the bar now that we’re at least old enough to drink our way through the evening.”

“Excellent notion,” Jeyne replied, and the two women led the way. 

A few minutes later, cocktails in hand, Robb and Jeyne stepped away to say hello to Robb’s friends from the football team.

Sansa smiled as Jon’s shoulders hunched when Robb walked away. “You can’t hide out in the corner while your security blanket is out there mingling.”

“Mingling is such a gross word,” Jon said, making Sansa laugh. “Seriously! Does that word sound like an activity that’s even remotely appealing?”

“No, I suppose not, but you came back for the reunion, right? You have to reunite!”

“I’ve reunited with you, and isn’t that just a smashing success,” he said in a clear—and clearly lame—attempt at flirting.

Sansa eyed him over the rim of her martini glass as she took a sip. “It’s a work in progress,” she said with a wink.

Jon congratulated himself for not blacking out from desire then and there.

“Come on,” Sansa said, looping her arm through his. “I think I see the Karstark boys over there. I know you were friends with them.”

Jon and Sansa spent the next hour reacquainting him with his former classmates, saying hello to people, catching up and generally bemoaning the passage of time. Since Jon wasn’t about to say much of anything about what he had been doing for ten years, he often deflected to Sansa when the topic turned to jobs, and everyone was delighted to ask her about her shop and her podcast, which to Sansa’s own surprise proved quite popular among the locals. With a sweet (and sexy) mixture of embarrassment and pride, Sansa answered.

_Yes, it’s more work than it seems._

_No, we don’t only sell our own clothes—we’d never have the volume!_

_Yes, we get trolls, but most people who listen and email or call in are nice and have genuine questions._

_No, despite what Margaery says Olenna Tyrell isn’t our only source of income._

_Yes, we do bespoke. Come by for a fitting some time!_

Jon took it all in, happy to go along with the going assumption that they were a couple. Their arms remained linked and if Sansa wasn’t going to let go, Jon sure a fuck wasn’t going to.

For the dinner portion of the evening, they found Robb and Jeyne again and enjoyed a Dornish dish that could have been better but given how good the drinks were, who even noticed. When the band started up, Robb and Jeyne immediately headed to the dance floor. Jon and Sansa stood, too, both looking at each other expectantly but neither saying anything.

The spell between them was broken when they heard a familiar voice behind them.

“Well, well, well! I guess the rumors are true. Jon Snow is back from the dead or wherever the fuck he disappeared to.”

They turned around to see the grinning, inebriated face of Theon Greyjoy.

“Hello, Theon,” Sansa with a knowing laugh. “Are you seriously just now getting here?”

“Hello, Sansa. You know I have a full social schedule. But I don’t remember you being a part of our class. Are you telling me you’re here as someone’s date?” Theon squeezed himself between them and put his arms around them both—or tried, anyway. It was easy enough with Jon, but Theon was even shorter that Jon, which meant that Sansa was almost a full head taller than him at the moment. He settled for just keeping Jon close and turning him so they were both facing her.

“Everyone in your class loved me,” Sansa said.

“I know!” Theon replied with a laugh. “Especially, this dude! Your date couldn’t possibly be Snow here, though, because even though he was stupidly in love with you all through school, he was more into the brooding from afar, you know.”

Jon watched as Sansa narrowed her eyes at Theon, as if trying to come up with a quick come back, but her cheeks had blushed slightly at the mention of his long-standing crush.

“Do you have anything constructive to say, Greyjoy?” Jon asked, stepping out from under Theon’s arm. “Aren’t you even going to welcome me back?”

“Why would I welcome you back? I never had to play second banana to you with Robb after you left. Good fucking riddance.”

Jon laughed. “You really never let a grudge go.”

“Never!” Looking back and forth between Jon and Sansa, Theon added, “But I suppose it is good to see your sorry mug again, especially if you’re getting this one to come out dressed like this.”

“Please refrain from ogling Sansa,” Jon said, his face growing serious.

“Listen, man, Sansa and I are like this,” Theon said, holding up two fingers crossed. “If you do anything to hurt my girl, here, I’ll kick the shit out of you.”

Jon smiled again, surprised at how sincere the threat sounded.

“Theon, I appreciate the chivalry and all, but I think my honor is safe for the time being,” Sansa said. “Why don’t you go find Jeyne Poole, and see if she’ll finally agree to go out with you.”

“If only,” he said with a sigh. “All right, but I’ve got my eye on you, Snow.”

“Noted,” Jon deadpanned.

Sansa took a sip of her drink as Theon walked away. Once he was out of earshot, she said quietly, “Theon, um, he helped me . . . leaving my ex. He went through some things too. We were in a support group for abuse survivors. I couldn’t have done it without him.”

Jon took her hand and squeezed it gently.

Sansa smiled. “I know he was an ass in high school a lot of the time, but he’s a good guy at the end of the day.”

“He wasn’t all that bad then, to be honest. A personification of ‘boys will be boys,’ maybe, but in a good way. . . always someone you wanted on your side. I’m glad he was there for you. I wish I had been. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m sorry I wasn’t. Like . . . might never forgive myself sorry.”

Sansa took a deep breath and was about to speak when Jon blurted out, “I have recurring dreams about you. Have I told you that?”

Sansa chuckled. “What?”

“You’re usually running, and I’m trying to keep up. I don’t really know what it means other than you never stopped being on my mind.” Jon looked down for a moment. “I’m sort of . . . in transition, I guess. I’m quitting my job and I want to come back to Winterfell, but if you don’t want me in your life, I won’t.”

Sansa bit her lip. “Do you want to know why I don’t want you to say you’re sorry for leaving and being gone for so long?”

Jon nodded.

“Because I’m not. I’m actually kind of glad you missed it all.”

“I don’t understand.”

Sansa took a deep breath. “After, um, after everything, I considered leaving Winterfell . . . moving somewhere really far away like Essos or—just somewhere where everything didn’t trigger me into a panic attack, you know? Even my family took a while to get back to treating me like Sansa instead of a survivor who required kid gloves. Eventually, I figured out I am too much of a Northerner to ever live anywhere else but, it took a while for me to be OK with the good and bad memories I have here.” She shook her head and laughed. “You are not allowed to repeat this, but Theon and I had a drunken hook up once.”

“You did?” Jon replied quietly, keeping his voice as neutral as possible, not wanting to let himself get in the way of her saying what she needed to say despite some intense momentary jealousy.

She nodded. “The next day we talked about what it meant and whether it could turnsomething more and whether we’d be ready for that, given what we had both gone through. But it just made me realize that I wanted a clean break from what happened. I didn’t want a relationship that carried any of that baggage, which meant I had to compartmentalize Theon into a good friend and nothing else. With you, I . . . ”

Despite her best efforts, a small tear managed to squeeze itself out. Jon took a step closer to her and cradled her cheek with his palm so he could wipe it with his thumb.

“I was sad and mad at you for a long time, Jon, but the fact you left and stayed away as long as you did now means that whatever happens between us. . . _anything_ can. I’m not sorry you didn’t see me at rock bottom. It’s kind of nice, actually. ”

* * *

Jon could never remember exactly how it started the very first time he and Sansa kissed. They were snuggled under the hotel’s massive comforter, both having stripped down to their underwear before crashing in the wee hours of the morning after prom night, too tired for inhibitions by then.

The night before, when her tear-filled doe eyes had brightened at the sight of him in a slightly too long suit he found at the back of Robb’s closet, tie lopsided and hair hastily tied into a knot at the back of his head (bun was too elegant a word for it), adrenaline filled her and—determined not to care what anyone thought, least of all Harry who had gone without her and was likely spiking the punch even now—they set out. But at the hotel she suddenly felt tired and scared and wanted nothing more than to hideaway. The idea wasn’t to stay in a room all night, but the longer they talked, the less they cared about being anywhere else. The room became a protective bubble that guarded them against everything, including their own insecurities. When they finally fell asleep something in them both, in the air around them, had changed. Waking up, there was no doubt in either of them, their eyes opened and the kiss just started, like it had been there all night waiting for them the catch up.

* * *

Jon didn’t and would never quite remember exactly how it started when he and Sansa kissed at the reunion.

One minute the floor fell under his feet when Sansa said that maybe possibly they had a future, the next he felt like he was floating because he was in her arms and they were laughing at each other while moving vaguely to the rhythm of the music playing. Well, she was laughing at him because he was a terrible dancer. After the laughing, the music slowed and so did Jon and Sansa. They stepped into each other until they were dancing cheek to cheek. One or both of them turned toward each other, and suddenly there her lips were. Soft, pliant, eager. _Hopeful_.

He tightened his arms around her, as if he didn’t she might float away. He might have moaned, in fucking public, when he felt her run her fingers through his hair. It felt right, familiar, perfect, like this very moment was the sole reason for his sorry existence. He felt Sansa’s tongue lick along his lower lip and he opened his mouth, deepening the kiss slowly, deliberately. Eventually, they pulled away, out of breath, but their heads remained close.

“Wow,” she said with a light laugh. “I really thought I’d built up the memory of kissing you in my mind, but that was legitimately as good as I remember.”

“I’m kind of partial to awkwardly punching you in the lips with my lips like back at your shop yesterday.”

Sansa threw her head back, laughing, Jon grinned watching her do it—a full-on cheeks hurt grin—before tightening his arms around her again and bringing his lips to the hollow of her neck.

Then, of course, Robb came over to them and laughed at the state in which he had caught them. He and Jeyne were ready to turn in and get lucky for only the fourth time as parents, he’d said. This detail was only shared because Robb had had a few too many, and Jon and Sansa were too endeared to point out that this was way too much information.

Then, Sansa looked at Jon in _that _way and pointed out that she didn’t have a ride home and that he had a room and would he settle their tab at the bar while she went to powder her nose?

He _would_.

He was laughing because he felt blindingly happy.

_Blindingly_.

_Blind_.

Which is to say that he didn’t see any of what happened next coming.

* * *

When Jon got to the bar, the bartender was gone, but the two government spooks were there, standing on the other side, arguing with each other too heatedly to have noticed Jon approaching. He turned and walked away, realizing for the first time that this probably meant something was wrong. He ran through the ballroom back to the hotel’s main hall to find Sansa, which is where Gregor Clegane had apparently been waiting for him.

The huge monstrosity of man whom Jon had only ever known by well-earned reputation—and his nickname, The Mountain—grabbed Jon from behind, gigantic hand over mouth and nose, before Jon could so much as curse himself for being so careless, and dragged him down the hall into a bathroom.

The door opened into an anteroom and the small space between the outer door and the inner door was too small for the large man, who’d had to hunch down to come in. This gave Jon the chance to push his feet against one wall and push Clegane into the other. The force was not enough for Clegane to let go, but his grip gave way and Jon was able to get a breath of air and put one of his hands between his neck and his opponent’s bicep, keeping the Mountain from completely strangling Jon. Once they had made it all the way into the bathroom, Jon got a grip of one of his fingers and started pulling back. Although the man grunted, his grip only tightened and with his now free other hand, he grabbed Jon by the hair and threw him against the back wall. Jon hit it face first and then fell to the floor. He felt the bitter, metallic taste of his own blood fill his mouth, and as he shook his head to try to get his bearings, all he could focus on was the fact that if anything happened to him, Sansa might be in danger.

Jon turned toward Clegane again but only felt him lift up Jon’s face to land another punch, quickly followed by a kick to the ribs. Jon picked himself up and ran, in a low crouch, toward Clegane, aiming for his knees, only to be met with another kick. As he looked up, he knew he couldn’t defeat this man in hand-to-hand combat like this. He had to get away but had no path to the door. Slowly, trying to assess his options, Jon stood again and said, panting, “Is that all you got?”

He lunged at the Mountain again, but suddenly the giant collapsed, and Oberyn Martell came into view.

“Hello, Jon Snow. You look like you could use a little help.” Martell stood over Clegane digging his foot into the wide gash he had just made on the side of his leg with a long knife and laughing as the Mountain grunted in pain.

Jon pulled back. “Who the fuck are you and why the fuck are you here?”

Martell laughed. “You know who I am.”

Jon struggled to catch his breath. “Why are you trying to kill me?”

“I’m _not_ trying to kill you. This beast here is trying. Maybe if he weren’t such a brute, he’d have done the job already. If you’re asking about the gas station, that was just me having a little fun—you can’t tell me you’re not a little bit happy I did that. I mean they tore down your house.”

Jon rolled his eyes as Martell smirked. As he caught his breath, Jon could see Clegane struggling to stand up, but each time he tried, Martell kicked the knife sticking from the side of his leg in further.

“Why. Are. You. Here?”

“I’m here for the same reason you are.”

_The dossier._

“Go make sure your pretty girl is safe. I’ll take care of him.”

“What about the job?”

Martell laughed again. “You obviously know now that if you don’t take care of it someone else might. You think the dragon girl will like it if that happens?”

Jon stepped over the huge body, who tried to lunge at him on the way out, but Martell kicked him in the face.

As he pushed back into the main hall of the hotel again, Jon looked down and noticed his state. The sleeve of his jacket was torn, and he was bleeding from a cut above his right eyebrow.

“Gods, Jon, what happened?” Sansa said approaching him, a horrified look on her face.

“We have to get somewhere safe,” he said, taking her by the elbow, toward the elevators, but she pulled away immediately.

“Wait, we need to get you to a hospital. Seriously, what happened?! Who did this to you?”

Jon sighed, feeling defeated. “Sansa, we can’t do this out here in the open. Let’s—“

“Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“Sansa, listen to me. The man who did this is after something. I need to find out what it is.”

“You know the person who did this? Where is he?”

Jon looked up to look her in the eyes and recognition filled them in one fell swoop. She took a step back. “Oh.”

“Sansa—“

She turned abruptly. “I need to leave.”

“Sansa,” he said trying to follow her. “I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Stop!” She said not looking at him. “I said I’m leaving and we agreed I could without warning or explanation.”

“What I do is . . . complicated. I tried—“

“Jon, you were joking,” she said sharply. “You were joking about killing people for a living because that’s what people do. They joke about the horrible things they _don’t_ do!”

Defeated, he looked down and said, “I have to, um, I have to do something before before I can walk away from all this.”

“You have to kill someone else?”

Jon didn’t have anything to say to that. “Are you going to be OK getting home?”

Without answering him, she turned and walked away.

Jon watched her feeling like the rest of his life was walking away from him. But if ever it was more clear that he needed to get the fuck away from the mess he had made of his life, this was it, so he turned the other way and ran to the elevator and then to his room.

Once there, the ransacked his suitcase for the dossier and ripped it open. Only two words on the first page of the inch-think file registered in Jon’s mind.

_Catelyn Stark_

“Fucking _fuck_!”

If Oberyn Martell and The Mountain were here for the same reason Jon was, that meant there were both there for Catelyn, which meant the Starks were in danger. If they were working on the same intelligence Jon was, though, why had they waited? Why hadn’t they approached Catelyn already? This was what was on Jon’s mind as he grabbed the file, secured his guns then rushed back to the bathroom where he had left the two men. Except when he got there, Gregor Clegane was gone, and stuffed into one of the stalls was Martell’s body, his head crushed like an egg shell.

“Fuck!”

If Gregor Clegane could do this to a pro like Martell with his bare hands while injured, there was no telling what he could do to the Starks. Jon had to get to them first, but he needed backup. He ran back into the ballroom and the spooks were just coming into the main lobby when he saw them.

He reached the woman first.

“I need your help.”

* * *

Jon had been standing on this very lawn mere hours ago, and it may well have been a different lifetime. He was out of the car Brienne Tarth was driving—_not fucking fast enough, than you very fucking much_—before she’d even put it in park. Jon would have driven himself, but he had to read the file.

Jon’s knock on the door clearly conveyed his urgency, so Sansa, who opened it, looked alarmed even before he saw that it was him. Having arrived home on a taxi just minutes before, she was still wearing what she had worn to the reunion.

“What are you doing here?”

Jon couldn’t waste any time. “Where is your mother?”

“What?”

Behind Jon, Jaime Lannister, who had followed Jon out of the car, flashed his badge. “There may be an intruder who is extremely dangerous,” he said as both men walked past Sansa into the house.

“What’s going on here?” Ned said, coming into the foyer from the family room, where he had been reading.

“Where is Catelyn?” Jon asked.

“Ser Jaime and I are with the King’s Guard,” Brienne said, having come in and closed the door, a nervous looking Sansa trailing behind her. “We need to get everyone into the safest space in this house.

“I can explain everything,” Jon said, looking between Ned and Sansa, “but first we need to get all of you safe and secure the house.”

“My office,” Ned said, nodding. “It’s on the first level here, but no windows.”

“Good,” Jon said. He turned to Brienne and Jaime, and said quickly, “You two need to secure the perimeter.”

“We don’t take orders from you,” Jaime snapped back.

Brienne put her hand on Jaime’s shoulder. “He’s right. I’ve already called back up from local police, and they’ll need to see a badge when they get here. Let’s go.” Looking at Jon, she said, “My instincts are telling me to trust you, so don’t fuck with me.”

“I can think of several people from your agency who have a rap sheet much longer than mine, so I’m trusting you too,” Jon replied.

Brienne nodded, and she and Jaime headed out. “Lock the door behind us,” she said.

Catelyn, having heard the commotion, came down the stairs. “What’s going on? Who was that?”

“Where’s the baby?” Jon asked.

“Sleeping in a pack-and-play,” Catelyn answered. “What is going on?”

“There may be someone trying to get into the house,” Ned said, “Go get him and bring him into the office.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jon said.

“You go with dad, mom,” Sansa said, “I’ll go with Jon.” Kicking her heels off, she ran up the stairs with Jon trailing behind her. She stopped at what Jon recognized as Robb’s old room and before opening the door, looked him in the eye. “What’s this about—is it whoever was hurting you at the hotel?”

Jon nodded.

“Is this the reason you’re really here in Winterfell?” Sansa’s voice cracked as she asked the question.

He took her hand. “I’m here because of you,” Jon said, trying to keep his emotions in check and stay focused on getting to the bottom of everything. “I didn’t even know what my assignment was until tonight. The guy who kicked my ass back at the hotel? He was sent by someone who is trying to keep information quiet, information they think your mom has.”

“My mom?”

“Let’s get back downstairs, and I’ll explain.”

With little Ned asleep and swaddled in Sansa’s arms, Jon led them to the office, where Ned and Cat were waiting. Once they were in, Jon looked at the scared and confused Starks, who stood close together and holding each other, and promised himself he’d step in front of every bullet fired in their direction.

“I left the Night’s Watch a few years ago to work for a group called the Three Dragons,” Jon began. “My boss grew up in the Targaryen crime family and when she was young, her brother sold her to a human trafficker to pay off a debt. She got out and after getting her revenge, she started targeting organized crime who forced women into prostitution.”

“So you kill bad people, but you don’t work for the government?” Sansa asked.

“She’s a vigilante,” Jon said, “a violent one. The ‘dragons’ are three hired killers she sends after people. I . . . I’m one of them.”

“What does that have to do with Cat?” Ned asked.

“For the last year, Dany’s been tracking Peter Baelish — you know him, don’t you?”

This last question was directed at Catelyn, who moved to sit down in one of the arm chairs in the room in shock. “He was a schoolmate. We grew up together, but . . . but—he’s not a criminal, is he? He runs hotels!”

“And underground brothels,” Jon said.

“He’s always been a slime,” Ned said, starting to pace, his anger rising.

Jon kneeled in front of Catelyn. “Did he ever tell you anything about what he did or where he keeps information—anything like that ring a bell?”

Catelyn shook her head. “Nothing! I’ve seen him two or three times in the last five years, if that. "

“Wait,” Sansa said, “If he’s your target what does that have to do with mom or us?”

“Baelish not the target,” Jon said. “He’s too politically protected, and killing him wouldn’t accomplish anything. The goal is to break down his organization, but nobody had ever gotten to the bottom of how he does business until a few months ago, whenthe King’s Guard caught an associate of his, a guy called Varys the Spider. His testimony was leaked and apparently he said that Baelish gave ‘his precious cat’ all his secrets’.’” Turning back to Catelyn, Jon took a breath and said, “One of the handlers in my group guessed he meant _you_.”

Catelyn closed her eyes and tears began to seep out. “He had a crush on me when we were kids. He—he . . . he used to call me that . . . his precious little Cat."

“When was the last time you saw him?” Jon asked.

“Last year, It was at my sister’s birthday. I was home in Riverrun, but it was just pleasantries between us. That’s all it’s been for years. He _never_ spoke to me about his business.”

“Did he ever give you something to keep for him or a gift he could have hidden something in?”

Ned stopped in his tracks. “The necklace.”

Cat covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Gods.”

“What?” Jon prodded.

“He gave me a necklace when I saw him last—a chain with a long crystal pendant. I tried to turn it down when he gave it to me, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.I’ve never even worn it.”

“Where is it?”

“In my jewelry box upstairs.”

Standing back up, Jon took one of his two guns out of his holster. “I’m going to go get it, but I want you to push the desk against the door when I leave and shoot anyone who tries to open it who isn’t me or Ser Brienne.”

Jon moved to hand the gun to Ned, but Sansa stepped in front of him. “I took self-defense classes,” she said, quietly. “I know how to use it.”

After she put the still sleeping baby in Catelyn’s arms, Sansa took the gun from Jon. They looked each other in the eyes, Sansa’s now red with tears too.

Then when the lights went out.

He felt Sansa grab his hand in the suddenly dark room. “Is he here?”

Jon squeezed it and brought it to his lips. “Remember, block the door behind me and don’t open it for anyone. I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

“What about you?” she asked, in a sob.

“I hate to say it, but I’m good at this.”

With that Jon stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him, not moving until he heard the sound of the desk getting pushed against the door.

The moon was bright outside, so he could see just enough to make his way quietly through the house, gun up, checking every corner. Once he made it up the stairs and into Ned and Catelyn’s room, Jon could see her jewelry box, plain as day on her vanity. There was a measure of genius in Baelish hiding something so precious in plain sight.

Clegane wouldn’t necessarily know what he was looking for—neither would Tarth or Lannister for that matter—only that Catelyn had it. Jon had come up with the intention of securing the necklace, but he realized then that there was no need to give away its hiding spot, not before he was sure it ended up where it needed to in order to take out Baelish. That was what Dany was after.

Hearing sirens in the distance, Jon ran back out to the top of the stairs.

The Mountain was standing at the bottom.

Jon raised his gun. “How many bullets do you reckon it will take to kill you?”

“More than you have in that gun.”

The sirens were getting louder as they stared each other down, but not so loud that it drowned out the sudden, muted, but unmistakable wail of the baby from the office. Not taking his eyes away from Jon, his face broke into a grotesque grin. He turned to run toward the sound, but Jon jumped from the stairs onto his back. Holding his thick neck as tightly as possible, Jon fired a round into the window to get spooks’ attention.

“You wasted one,” Clegane said with a laugh. He was limping, but even with Jon on his back, he kept moving.

Jon brought the arm that was holding his gun around, and Clegane caught it in his hands and held it so it was pointed against his neck. He pushed his back—and Jon—against a wall. The blow took the wind out of Jon, but he didn’t let go.

“Go ahead,” Clegane growled. “Pull the trigger now and you’ll only need one bullet to kill me, but it’ll go through me and get you too.”

Jon’s hand tightened his hand around his gun, but he hesitated. Clegane felt it and laughed.

“You can’t do it, can you, you little prick?”

Jon closed his eyes. They burned with tears and the images of the last thirty-six hours of his life. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “Joke’s on you, asshole, I was born with a death wish.”

He pulled the trigger.

Both of them fell in a heap to the floor, bleeding. Immediately, Jon heard the gurgling sound of Clegane drowning in his own blood above him, pinning him down. He’d been hit too but he couldn’t tell where—all he could feel was a searing pain in his upper chest like a brand.

The last thing he saw before blacking out was Tarth standing over him calling for an ambulance.

* * *

_Three days later._

Jon was awake for several minutes before opening his eyes, trying to focus on how to talk with his mouth so dry it felt like it was full of cotton. It was dark except for a fluorescent light behind him that, combined with the dull gray of what looked like very early morning light from the window, gave the room—_in a hospital?_—an eerie glow. Jon turned his head to his left and saw someone curled up on a rollaway cot next to his bed, completely covered by a large knitted blanket except for a familiar messy bun of red hair. The relief and joy that burst from his mouth in a sob at that moment would have given Elinor Dashwood at the end of Sense and Sensibility a run for her money. As it was, it was enough to wake Sansa, who sprung to her feet with such energy, nobody would guess she’d just been in deep sleep.

“Jon! You’re awake—thank the Gods!”

“Catelyn? The baby?” he eked out, trying to calm himself as the memory of his confrontation with The Mountain came back to him.

“She’s fine!” Sansa said cupping his face with her hands and kissing his forehead. “Everyone’s fine! We’re all OK. You’re going to be OK too.” She leaned in again but pulled away as Jon grimaced feeling a pull on his shoulder. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Jon looked down and noticed that his left arm was in a sling. He moved to lift his right only to feel the cold pull of metal on his wrist. “What the fuck?”

“Brienne and Jaime insisted. They thought you might be a flight risk.” Sansa shrugged meekly.

“Well, in fairness . . . “

She could probably see the mix of emotions in his eyes in that moment, because she leaned forward again and ran her fingers through the hair at the top of his head, pushing it back from his eyes. “You’re going to be OK, Jon. I promise. You protected us. We’re going to protect you. Dad has already had his lawyer talk to the King’s Guard people, and I made it more than clear to them I wasn’t going to let you out of my sight.”

“Everyone in your family really is safe?”

Sansa nodded.

“Gods, Sansa, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s OK. Let me go get, um . . .just give me a minute and we’ll talk it out.”

It actually took ten minutes because as Sansa left a nurse came in, then a doctor who explained that the bullet that shredded Gregor Clegane’s carotid artery causing him to bleed out from the neck in seconds came out the other side—just as he had predicted it would—and hit Jon in the shoulder. Conveniently, because the Mountain fell on Jon, his dead weight put sufficient pressure on the wound to stem the bleeding long enough for medics to arrive on the scene. Jon also had bruised ribs and a vertical line of stitches on his forehead above his left eye that would probably scar.

Finally, _finally_, the doctor finished his spiel and Sansa was back, and she wasn’t alone.

“Sam!?!” Jon tried to sit up in shock, seeing his friend. “What the hell are you doing here? Where’s—“

“Right here!” Gilly said. “You gave us quite a scare there.”

“OK . . . am I dead? Which of the seven hells is this?”

Gilly leaned over to Sansa. “He’s such a friggin’ drama queen.”

Sansa bit her lip to hold a smile. “I used your phone to call Gilly and tell her what happened.”

Jon wanted to melt at her knowing smile—the smile of a girl who unlocked his phone using her own name. It had worked. _Obviously._

“We hopped on the next flight here,” Sam said. “Dany knows, and hopefully this will all be resolved in a few minutes.”

“How?” Jon asked.

Sansa stepped forward and pulled on a chain around her neck that had been tucked under her T-shirt. The pendant was actually smaller than Jon had imagined. She handed it to Sam who regarded it for a long moment. “Ingenious, really.” He set it down on the sheet above Jon’s knees and took a small set of tools from the satchel he was carrying, along with a laptop. Using a set of tweezers and a tiny flathead screwdriver, he unscrewed the metal top of the pendant, through which the chain had been looped. When it was off, a small slit was visible at the top of the crystal. Carefully, Sam inserted the screwdriver into the slit and pried the two sides apart revealing a memory card, barely a half-inch square in size.

“Holy shit,” Sansa whispered.

“Holy shit is right,” Sam said, grabbing it with the tweezers and putting it on the palm of Gilly’s hand.

“I almost didn’t believe it,” Sansa said.

Gilly sighed. “All right, boo,” she said, looking at Sam, “let’s get to work. Dany will fly here herself, if we don’t give her a report in the next few hours.”

“Wait,” Jon said. “I . . . I have an idea.”

* * *

It was less an idea and more like a desperate plea, but it all worked out in the end.

Dany got the treasure trove of information about Peter Baelilsh’s operations, bank accounts, associates and more that she was after on the condition that she let Jon _and_ Gilly and Sam all go.

The King’s Guard got it all too, in exchange for immunity for Gilly and Sam, lenience for Jon, and an ultimatum from Dany that if they couldn’t find something to charge Peter Baelish with within the year, she would send her two remaining dragons in to do the _bloody_ work of taking him and his operation down with her usual take no prisoners approach.

Jon didn’t officially move back home to Winterfell until after his six months in the minimum security facility in Hardhome where he was sent for killing a government informant. While there he received and wrote letters to Sansa practically every day and listened to her podcast. She did eventually tape an episode in which she made fun of the Winterfell High School reunion. She also mused on the weird as fuck turns life can take. 

Jon’s favorite episode, though, would always be the one in which she discussed the pros and cons of wearing an emerald green formal romper to pick up your boyfriend when he gets out of prison. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Thank you so much to everyone who read this story. 
> 
> I should point out that the "punch you in the mouth with my mouth" line was a pointed reference to quite possibly my favorite Jon x Sansa meme that I've seen on tumblr. 
> 
> Speaking of tumblr, I'm on it now, so come find me there (periwinkle39.tumblr.com).


End file.
